Monday, October 29, 2007

The Oregon Coast

Exulation is the goingOf an inland soul to the sea,Past the houses--past the headlands--Into deep Eternity--

Bred as we, among the mountains,Can the sailor understandThe divine intoxicationOf the first league out from land?

-Emily Dickinson

Sweetwater kisses salt, where freshwater meets the sea.

By far the best fish and chips that I have had on this side of the Atlantic. And in a tiny, little-known town of two hundred or so souls.

It took about five minutes for this rapacious gull to turn the living, kicking crab in this photo into a hollow shell. An act of hunger that was cold, mechanistic, and carried out with not the least sign of empathy.

Where the massive Columbia River meets the sea, international shipping waits to switch river pilots for bar pilots, who will guide the vessels across the notoriously treacherous sandy bar into the open ocean.